Notes in Passing

Flowers on an Altar

The flowers on the altar were for you
It would have been your birthday on the 3rd
They looked a little small from our back pew
But beautiful, folks told us afterward

The notice in the bulletin bore my name
The flowers were from Molly more than me
Still grieving that she never quite became
The daughter-in-law you hoped that she would be

Nor did I think about you while we sat
Your great-grandchildren kept me occupied
I was too busy to remember that
It's been more than a year now since you died

And yet tonight you interrupt my sleep
Though even in my dream I do not weep

Moving Experience

we move and are moved
in time, in mind
the world, too, moves
slowly, but now
this moment's motion
speeds and O
we are moving
together

AWOL Colleague

The smiling guilty man is gone
Who lied to me so easily
And no one knows where he may be
Of if he'll ever come again

Some think he's ill, some say insane
And some suspect a secret plan
He was a strange and wily man
A trickster god's uncanny son

He left no address for our mail
We phone but he is never there
And yet there lingers in the air
The last faint traces of a smile

Times Having Changed

Where are all the horrible men
Who used to marry girls like these?
When I was young, one could depend
On gorgeous girls to have at least

A husband with a hairy nose
A handshake slippery with sweat
A horrid taste in rings and clothes
A history of unpaid debt

But now these women are unwed
Still single or divorced at best
Girls bright and beautiful, well-bred,
Sexy and elegantly dressed

While all their sorry suitors now
Have found they can survive with no
Commitments like a marriage vow
To hold them when it's time to go

And leave too long alone again
Women who seem designed to please
Oh, where are all the rotten men
Who used to marry girls like these?

Verb Poem
glisten

like early morning snow

warm flesh by moonlight

listen

while I dream you hear and

list

all that I don't know about you, which

is

a field of white snow

where possibilities

glisten

Not Really

This is not obsession, though
I think about you a bit
too much and sometimes at the
wrong times. I'm off my stride but
not out of control. I've grown
too old and settled to see
myself letting anyone
obsess me--or so I say

Might as Well

Unfailing is your fate in life
That love affairs end sadly.
Unerring is your choice of men
Who always treat you badly.

The CIA should hire you
To be a mole detector.
The spy you loved could only be
A traitor and defector.

The arrogant, the all too smooth,
The borderline neurotic--
If there is something not quite right
You find the man erotic.

Appalling is your taste in men,
So don't blame me for feeling
That based on your track record, dear,
You should find me appealing.

Her Ex-Lover

Sweet lips that taste like honeyed cake
Too sweet for one not brave
She never gave herself, but gave
Too much for you to take.

To taste is not to swallow whole
The small mouthed fish at sea
Will master oceanography
Before you know her soul.

You've fed on holy honey dew
And now you must confess
You'd loved her more had she loved less
Or had she loved just you.

It was her generous mistake
To waste love on a knave
She never gave herself, but gave
Far more than you could take.

At the Shrine of the Triple Goddess

She is not safe to bed
Her lovers come to bad
ends--careers wrecked, hopes gone,
and worse--sleeping again
with mere women. So be
it. They deserved it by
their feeble answers to
the generosity
of her love. Perhaps they
hurt her--or would if the
chance had come. He who dies
for glimpsing the Lady's
naked self dies happy,
the poets say. To pay
a lesser cost should mean
nothing to any man
(Though the thought comes unbid:
She is not safe to bed.)

What Kim's Mother Told Her

You'd think their time was long gone
but they're touring again
and Keith claimed on TV his
lingerie collection is
bigger than ever before
which may be why Kim prefers
to think it must have been Keith
that her mother's virginity
was taken by, though her mom
would never say which, and some
girls say it was probably
just a roadie, though who'd lie
about anything like that?
Anyway, Kim has always thought
it was cool and has all their
CD's, but now her mother
won't let Kim go see their show,
which is dumb, since she should know
Kim certainly wasn't one
to wait for a Rolling Stone